Fiction: Starting Freshman Year (456 words)

09Dec

I was afraid to go to college, to be honest. I had decided not to go to the state school that most of my high school graduating class was attending, opting for a private school in the mountains known for its amazing creative writing program. (I’m actually kind of afraid that I’m not doing that program justice in my re-telling of this story, but in the school’s defense, I never actually finished my degree. But I digress.) My mom didn’t like the idea of me going off to a school where I had never met anyone at all—but in spite of my nerves I reassured her that I would be one hundred percent okay.

After all—if no one knew me—I could be anyone, do anything, change my life for the better. I had absolutely no idea how much my life was going to change just by choosing that school.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic again. Focus, Anna Belle, Focus.

So, I put on a brave face for my mother, and smiled the whole drive to the campus—six hours away from my childhood home. But I was scared. Scared I wasn’t going to make any friends. Scared that even though I had been an A and B student in high school that college was going to be too much for me to handle no matter how hard I studied. Scared that when all was said and done—I was just going to have wasted four years of my life and have the same job that I would have had without getting a degree, except now I would be saddled with a mountain of student debt as well. You know—normal stuff like that. Your typical going to college fears.

Have I sold this whole “I was a normal nineteen-year-old woman” thing yet? Because I was. Honestly. Laying it on too thick? Okay. I’ll stop.

Mom called me every night—which I both appreciated and hated. My roommate thought I was such a little Mommy’s girl, but then again she wasn’t the type of girl I really wanted to be friends with anyway (a little pretentious, as it were) so I didn’t properly care about what she thought.

But then three weeks in—I still hadn’t made any friends. I had to do something. Anything.

So I steeled my nerves and faced my fears. I joined a club.

It was the most nerve wracking thing I had done in my life up to that point. Walking into a room full of people who know each other well, and basically saying “Hi, Like me. Please. I’m desperate here.” Or maybe that was just me. But that’s how I met them. And that’s where we’ll begin.